Maricopa Community Colleges: Web Clue Point Oh (as in Zero)
The madcap fun never stops over at the Maricopa Community Colleges, where they’re still getting used to “the Internets. ” They once had an instructional technologist with mad skills, but they treated him with indifference, and he went where he could get better skritches and tastier snacks, because he’s one smart dog. Not only did they pull the plug or otherwise piss on a lot of his good work, they failed to even learn from him. Years after he had the whole “blog” thing figured out and was making significant thought contributions to the educational technology blogosphere, they finally decided to start blogging themselves. Which would have been a great idea, if they’d bothered learning to do it properly.
An announcement went out recently encouraging faculty and staff to post district wide opportunities for students
to the new Student Affairs Blog. But no one can actually write a new post. To post new information, you’re supposed to make a comment to the correct existing post. That ensures that the most recent stuff goes to the bottom of a very long list, and you can’t highlight any pertinent information like event names, dates and times with proper HTML formatting. RSS for syndicating new information? Forget about it. (Well, true, you could use the comments RSS, but what average user will be able to figure that out?) Using permalinks to link to a specific event’s details? Forget about it. They think their blog is a great tool to let students know about upcoming events/activities, financial aid and scholarship opportunities, and to have them share their college experiences.
The clue meter is still at zero, and holding.
